This analysis describes what Steam's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
The policy does not specify concrete retention periods for most data categories, making it difficult for users to know how long their game history, chat logs, or payment data will be held.
Steam collects a wide range of personal data including game statistics, playtime, device identifiers, chat messages, and payment information, and the policy authorizes sharing this data with Valve group companies, third-party developers, payment processors, and other service partners. The policy discloses that anonymized or aggregated data may be shared with third parties without restriction, and behavioral tracking is used for marketing and content personalization across Steam services. You can manage optional cookie settings at store.steampowered.com/account/cookiepreferences/ and limit content recommendations by adjusting the Interface settings in the Steam Client.
How other platforms handle this
We retain data as needed to facilitate and personalize your use of CL, combat fraud/abuse and/or as required by law.
We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements, to resolve disputes, and to enforce our agreements. When we no longer need to use your personal ...
We retain personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including to satisfy any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements, to resolve disputes, and to enforce our agreements. The criteria used to determine our retention periods include: the length of ...
Monitoring
Steam has changed this document before.
Receive same-day alerts, structured change summaries, and monitoring for up to 10 platforms.
"Valve will process and store your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. When your data is no longer needed, Valve will delete or anonymize your personal data.— Excerpt from Steam's Steam Privacy Policy
Professional Governance Intelligence
Need to monitor specific governance provisions?
Professional includes provision-level monitoring, governance timelines, regulatory mapping, and audit-ready analysis.
Built from archived source documents, structured governance mappings, and historical version tracking.
The policy does not specify concrete retention periods for most data categories, making it difficult for users to know how long their game history, chat logs, or payment data will be held.
ConductAtlas has identified this type of provision across 66 platforms. See the full comparison.
No. ConductAtlas is an independent monitoring service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Steam.